The End of an Era

Sitting in my one-bedroom apartment
bright in all its whiteness,
the burgeoning summer sun bursts
through the windows in slats of victory
and the worldly photos on the walls
gaze at me and revitalize
the past year of my life,
an experience that now
all seems a dream—
a totally distant,
wildly unreal,
entirely unforgettable
dream.

Tracking back to
four years ago,
I was a drowsy
and disheveled
girl making an ending
for the sake of starting
a new beginning.

Though,
even in the midst
of the picturesque finales
and sunny futures
that I created for myself,
my past was
a ubiquitous entity—

He had my secrets,
and taunted me with them
in the third person
like an auctioneer trying
to sell a story,
my story,
for someone else’s
consumption—

“Fifteen dollars for the tale about how J spread herself thin…”

“GOING ONCE…”

“…she cried in the privacy of her apartment on her couch…”

“GOING TWICE…”

“when pushing a brick to clear the rubble of her self-deprecating thoughts, she realized she had waited for nine month to hear back a simple, noncommittal ‘maybe’…”

“And SOLD to the gentleman wearing the blood-red necktie!”

The past’s presence
in my mind had me
mulling over trivialities
and morphing them
into monstrosities
to the point where
everything was just

insanity.

Yet,
the avaricious past,
despite its bilious color,
is brilliant—
cunning,
in fact.

His mockery,
or my perception of it,
taught me
to lavish in
obscurity,
look for the light,
and propel
myself
forward
further

into the dark night—
Blackbird fly.

Right now
in this moment,
I am finishing
the end of yet another era,
not just to put a cap on it
and call it caput,
but to close it ever so gracefully
with the clean click of a lock
as the door slides shut
on an epoch lived
not for mere survival
but with artistic vision.

Blackbird fly—
I see myself
in three months time,
I am on the brink
of a fresh school year,
untouched and untainted
but positioned in the posterior of success.
Blackbird flies into the light of this dark black night.

Removing my head from the clouds
and putting pencil back to paper,
I am going in for the kill.

The cutting past
has me welcoming
the darkness.

I am the Blackbird
singing in the dead of night

who has just been waiting
for this moment
to arise.